Pubdate: Thu, 02 Oct 2014
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2014 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Debra J. Saunders
Page: A10

MARIJUANA SMOKE GETS IN YOUR RIGHTS

If you wanted to nudge the courts to establish a right to use medical 
marijuana in states where it is legal, you couldn't pick a more 
sympathetic plaintiff than Brandon Coats of Colorado. As a teenager, 
Coats was injured in an automobile accident that left him severely 
disabled. Now 34, Coats is a quadriplegic who has had a state medical 
marijuana card since 2009. He worked as a customer service 
representative for Dish Network from 2007 to 2010, when Dish fired 
him after he tested positive for marijuana use during a random drug test.

Coats sued Dish. On Tuesday, attorneys argued his case before the 
Colorado Supreme Court.

"We're not arguing that it's a constitutional right," Coats' attorney 
Michael Evans told the court, "but we are arguing that it's lawful 
(to use marijuana outside the workplace)." Dish maintains that it 
fired Coats in keeping with its zerotolerance drug policy, which 
comports with federal law and even Colorado law, which provides an 
exception to state criminal laws for marijuana.

When I asked marijuana activist and entrepreneur Aaron Houston if he 
thought marijuana use was a right, he told me he wasn't sure how to 
answer, but he was sure there is a "a right to use the medicine your 
doctor recommends for you." But it's "perfectly reasonable" to 
restrict use "for safety-oriented jobs," Houston added. He just flew 
into Washington, D.C., and didn't want a pilot who is stoned.

Coats maintains that he never used marijuana on the job. He worked in 
a Dish call center, not installing equipment on roofs. Colorado law 
prohibits employers from firing workers for engaging in legal 
off-duty conduct - which means that if Coats wins, recreational 
marijuana users would be likely to gain job protections.

Houston looks at the Dish policy as outmoded, unscientific (as traces 
of marijuana in the body do not signify impairment) and bad for 
business. He notes that in May, FBI Director James Comey told a 
conference that computer programmers with a taste for weed "should go 
ahead and apply" for jobs at the bureau, despite a ban on the hiring 
of those who have smoked marijuana in the last three years. The Wall 
Street Journal reports that Comey said, "I have to hire a great 
workforce to compete with those cybercriminals and some of those kids 
want to smoke weed on the way to the interview."

I don't think Dish should have fired a call-center guy for testing 
positive for marijuana, but I have to agree with the Cato Institute's 
Walter Olson, who told me that, as a libertarian, he doesn't like 
corporate zero-tolerance policies, but he truly abhors "the endless 
proliferation of laws telling employers" what reasons they can use to 
pick their workers.

Consumers, on the other hand, are free to tell Dish what they think 
of the company's firing a quadriplegic for testing positive for 
medical marijuana. Maybe the company can take a hint from the FBI.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom